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Speaker 1: Time for us to talk about asteroid mining now. It

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Speaker 1: is something that you generally only expect to see in

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Speaker 1: the sci fi movies, but apparently it is actually close

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Speaker 1: to becoming a reality. In fact, the technology to do

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Speaker 1: this is now so far advanced that there are already

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Speaker 1: worries over how to regulate the industry. Animary Brennan is

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Speaker 1: a senior law lecturer at Waikato University and with US

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Speaker 1: High Animory.

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Speaker 2: Hi, thanks so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're welcome, Thanks for joining us. How close is it? Like,

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Speaker 1: how long before we're actually mining an asteroid by the end.

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Speaker 2: Of the decade by all accounts, and the technology to

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Speaker 2: get us there is actually being built and developed here

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: How do you actually do it? How would they do it?

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Speaker 2: It's basically about sending small, smart robots to find, sample

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Speaker 2: and extract what we think might be useful stuff from

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Speaker 2: near Earth asteroids. Water for fuel and life support, metals

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Speaker 2: for structure, and perhaps one day as well, traces of

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Speaker 2: platinum group elements. So the near term payoff isn't bags

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Speaker 2: of platinum. It's basically about in space fuel and oxygen

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Speaker 2: so that we can stay in space for longer. And

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Speaker 2: so that we don't have to bring everything with us

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Speaker 2: from Earth. So basically that is the logic behind NASA's

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Speaker 2: insitue resource utilization plans and also industry plans as well,

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Speaker 2: to try and have the basics when we do want

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Speaker 2: to construct and stay longer in outer space.

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Speaker 1: So is there no one who was motivated to mind

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Speaker 1: the critical minerals and bring them back here.

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Speaker 2: Well, those minerals as well will be crucial for our smartphones,

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Speaker 2: everything from pladium for creating electronics and advanced medical devices,

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Speaker 2: pacemakers and catalytic converters. And indeed, one of the big

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Speaker 2: environ mental payoffs here is actually that it would reduce

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Speaker 2: the environmental footprint here on Earth. This is what some

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Speaker 2: researchers think. But at the same time, a lot of research,

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Speaker 2: a lot of lawyers think that we do need a

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Speaker 2: monitoring mechanism for this activity. And of course New Zealand

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Speaker 2: is intertwined with this story. The California startup Astroforde launched

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Speaker 2: Odin in twenty twenty five to scout a metal rich

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Speaker 2: asteroid and the spacecraft flew with propulsion from Dawn Aerospace,

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Speaker 2: which is a New Zealand based company, and Don Aerospace's

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Speaker 2: own heritage blog notes that the Odin spacecraft is equipped

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Speaker 2: with Dawn Aerospace SAT drive propulsion. Now, New Zealand is

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Speaker 2: regarded as a strong player in the space in the

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Speaker 2: space industry, it is heavily regulated to ensure that that

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Speaker 2: operations launch from here don't have the environmental footprint. But

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Speaker 2: other countries don't have that robust regulation. So the concerns

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Speaker 2: are that other if other companies launch from other countries,

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Speaker 2: how do we ensure that the environmental print is kept

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Speaker 2: as low as possible?

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Speaker 1: What are we Are we concerned about what happens back

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Speaker 1: on Earth or are we concerned that they get up

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Speaker 1: there in the muck around of the asteroid and then

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Speaker 1: start heading satellites.

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Speaker 2: Well, the risks here, I suppose, firstly, if we look

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Speaker 2: at outer space drilling, thruster plumes and even surface contact

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Speaker 2: and kick uf dust, that can threaten other spacecraft along

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Speaker 2: too other companies and states and also contaminate pristine science targets.

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Speaker 2: And that is why we see emerging norms around drilling

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Speaker 2: and mining and outer space trying to emphasize transparency and

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Speaker 2: dec confiction and sustainability so that there aren't any disputes

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Speaker 2: or arguments about how we go about asteroid mining. And

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Speaker 2: then this is also ongoing at the level at the

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Speaker 2: UN level with the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of

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Speaker 2: Outer Space. So they're trying to develop the guidelines in

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Speaker 2: actual real time to try and put principles to provide

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Speaker 2: guidelines in place so that we can actually mine.

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Speaker 1: We are we getting a hit of our selves here

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Speaker 1: because I mean, if we just look at the critical

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Speaker 1: minerals mining, right, it is so enormously expensive to mine

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Speaker 1: it on Earth. Surely if you're then sending a piece

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Speaker 1: of kit app up into space to go in mind it,

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Speaker 1: it just makes the whole thing impossible in terms of

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Speaker 1: its expenses. And surely the same must also be true

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Speaker 1: of trying to get water, oxygen, or anything out of asteroid.

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Speaker 1: It's surely cheaper to just take it up with you.

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Speaker 2: Some companies actually calculated that's actually cheaper to drill in

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Speaker 2: outer space for fuel and oxygen. And again what we

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Speaker 2: see in is NASA might have very big, a very

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Speaker 2: big budget to pull off their operations in outer space,

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Speaker 2: but companies can do it at a much cheaper cost.

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Speaker 2: And we see that again again again, and also what

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Speaker 2: we see astrophysicists foreseeing is that the first trillionaire trillionaire

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Speaker 2: will be from actually asteroid mining. So again what we

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Speaker 2: see companies here are being very very innovative in achieving

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Speaker 2: these goals and at a kind of a low cost

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Speaker 2: rate comparison to state operators.

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Speaker 1: Interesting. Hey, thank you very much for talking to us

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Speaker 1: through at Anna Marie Brennan, who is the why Cuttle

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Speaker 1: University Senior law lecturer. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,

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